February 5th, 2015. That was the last time I felt as awful and as helpless as I do now. It was the day before I landed in the hospital and finally had a diagnosis for how I’d been feeling – I was so, so scared. I couldn’t get out of bed without almost passing out from the effort. I couldn’t do much more than cry, with the occasional break to throw up into the sink. It was hell. 

I’m in that hell again. It’s day five after starting new medication to deal with my blood sugar, and the day the dosage doubled. I’m nauseous all the time. I have no energy. I had to go downstairs to get the mail today, and the effort made me throw up. Ed keeps imploring me to eat and I’m *trying*, but I can barely choke things down (and usually throw them up again shortly afterward). I know there’s an adjustment period to lifestyle changes, but this. fucking. sucks. It feels like I’m dying all over again, and that isn’t hyperbole – I know what almost dying feels like. It feels like this. 

My blood sugar is down almost 11 points, though – instead of the danger zone, I’m high normal. Yippee. Totally worth feeling like death for a week. Can’t wait for this to be my entire life: feeling awful, sobbing and vomiting (sometimes at the same time!), and no potatoes. Or rice. I’m fucking Asian and Irish. This is so racist. 

I just want to feel like I did a week ago, before I made all these changes for the “better”. 

I cleaned out the pantry tonight. This was actually scheduled before I learned that all food will kill me dead, but because of that the cleaning had extra gravity. I filled three large garbage bags with expired food, partially eaten snacks, and sauces of questionable quality. Any food that was still good but unopened will be donated.

I’m slowly but surely making my way around the house, purging as much as I can in preparation for the move. The condo will go on the market when we return from Ireland, and I’m a little concerned about how the hell we’re going to stage it when everything I own is chaos. Part of my summer plans will be to clean out my storage locker, then start packing away some of the items that scream “unspeakable horrors happened here” as opposed to “raise your babies in my Lady Cave!”. I’m still trying to figure out how to hold a garage sale – Ed suggested I post everything I have for sale, then hold an open house for anyone who might be interested in stuff. I could do that. Remember when I gave away all those bags? Yeah, there’s a lot more where that came from.

I’ve posted before about my tendency to hoard food. I’m still doing it, and my brain still works the same way – if there are no snacks in the house, all I want to do is stuff my face with them. If they’re everywhere, I don’t need them. They just have to be available. It was surprisingly easy to empty out the pantry of 90% of the bad food (the only pang of regret I felt was for the unopened bag of sea salt caramels but even then I’ve had the bag for over a year and never ate them), but I kept a few things to ward off my cravings. They’ll likely get tossed out untouched when it’s time to clean the pantry again, but that’s okay. They’re there, and that’s all I need.

Before I became some sort of hunched, pantless hermit, I worked in an office with other people. I used to frequently ply them with candy: I’d buy a bag of something I wanted, eat one or two, then give the rest away. I brought home my stash of candy when I left the office, and put everything into a drawer and forgot about it other than to add to the stash every now and again. Part of the pantry purge included bagging up all the candy hidden around the house to give to my friends, because someone might as well enjoy the stuff I can’t. Even with my hoarding habit, I was a little shocked at the final almost final roundup:

one cat + one cat butt + a metric shit ton of candy

The loose, wrapped candy filled 3/4 of the bag Dilly is sitting in and is heavy as hell. What the fuck. The people who visit my house have failed me: why did you not eat all this? You’re going to sit there until you clean your plate, young lady. Diabetes for everyone!

I found two more small stashes after I took this picture. They’ve been added to the bag. Is this normal behaviour? I can’t tell.

We’re supposed to be in Edmonton right now, but we canceled our road trip at the last minute. The interior of BC (and much of our driving route) is under severe landslide warnings and we would both prefer not to be washed away in mud. That, coupled with the fire alarm testing going on at Sparta today, caused us to postpone – we’ll go later next month. Safety eventually and all, but I’m kind of bummed to be missing out on the Astronautalis show in Edmonton this Friday. It was a conveniently-timed coincidence, but then mud. Boo.

I’m sort of glad we’re home for the fire alarms, though. Poor Hobbes goes catatonic with fear when they go off, so at least we’re here to keep the cats company. When the alarms start, I’ll hide in my bathroom with them for a few hours. In fact, last night I deep-cleaned my bathroom so we’d have a nice place to hang out while loud noises are happening. I am so considerate! Plus, I have to work in there all morning. Might as well be comfortable.

So, instead of leisurely driving through the mountains looking for elk this upcoming long weekend, I will be at home, cleaning out our pantry. I look forward to taking inventory of all my creamed corn and disposing of expired sauces. Yes, I lead an enviable life. I totally wish I was me.

seriously, this weather sucks.

I can’t get a complete inventory because counting makes me itchy, but based on what I HAVE counted and can see, I have over 70 mosquito bites. It sucks, and is not at all embellished for the internet: I am gross all over. I have ten bites on my left kneecap alone, and the back of my legs is an utter horror show. My arms are a nightmare. I look pox-ridden. 

But! I had an excellent time in Orlando! My coworkers are completely awesome, and far less scary than my anxiety predicted. There were 20 of us down for the week, and instead of hotels, we stayed in two 10-bedroom resort homes in a fancy gated complex that were super fance: each room had its own ensuite (I lucked out and randomly picked a room with a soaker tub), the living rooms had nice squishy leather couches, each dang house had a pool and hot tub out back, the kitchens had ample counter/table space for laptoppin’, etc. Apparently, this is how people do Florida. I could get used to it (maybe without the mosquitoes though). 

Also, I was never without Diet Coke or ice cubes, for which I am absurdly grateful. I don’t require alcohol or specific food stuffs or special treatment, but DAMN if I don’t appreciate being accommodated. I was delightfully caffeinated all week long! I am easy to please. 

There are very few good things to be said about a total disregard for the environment, but I had forgotten how glorious a shower with epic water pressure is. I tried to keep my showering short (not in part because the water was stank with swamp), but daaaang. Every morning it was like sandblasting the previous evening’s bad decisions off my person. Loved it (but still feel bad). 

I ended my trip with a minor catastrophe in the air: I lost my passport. I remembered having it at the gate when my boarding pass was scanned, and then .. nothing. I emptied out the bags I was carrying, tore apart my seat, disturbed every person in a three seat radius, but nothing: my passport had simply vanished. The flight attendants called the airport with their fancy airplane phones and had the ground crew check the gate and walkway, but there was no sign of it. I tried to remain calm (and did a pretty good job of not losing my shit [no pun intended]), but I knew I was facing a difficult time at YVR customs .. oh and also I leave for Japan in a week and can’t do that without a passport. Fuck. And who the hell loses important documents along a 10′ walk in a straight line? Me, apparently. 

After I had disturbed people as much as I could, I resigned myself to staying on the plane until everyone had left so I could check the other seats. The flight landed, people stood and gathered their things, and then the best goddamn thing happened: the woman sitting behind me spotted my passport in the overhead bin above my head. HOLY SHIT WHAT A FUCKING RELIEF. I didn’t think to check the bin above me during my search because my carry-on bag wasn’t in there – I had placed it in the bin across from me, and checked that thoroughly. As near as I can figure, when I got on the plane I hoisted my bag into the bin then set my passport and boarding pass above my seat – in the bin – to arrange myself and stash my tote bag. In my haste to sit down and get out of people’s way, I utterly forgot that I had put my documents down above my head. It was fortunate that the lady was taller than I, because I’d have never been able to see into the overhead bin and would have missed it entirely during my search. Stressful as fuck, but it ended better than I could have hoped AND I didn’t have to beg Canadian Border Patrol to let me in. Score!

All in all, a great week (passport stress and bites aside). I had some great conversations about work and music and video games and Japanese sex acts, finally met most of my coworkers in the flesh, successfully escaped Mars, and wasn’t eaten by an alligator. A++++++, would #cycleweek again. 

Oh, and I have fully embraced the fact that I am a Ravenclaw through and through, and own the robe to prove it.